A typical spectrometer is used to provide a spectral image of a scene. The scene to be measured is imaged along an entrance slit via a conventional telescope image system or the like. Each feature of the scene is spectrally dispersed by the spectrometer so that a corresponding spectral image of the scene is produced at the receiver. The spectrometer must measure the equivalent of hundreds of spectra at the same time. Each spectra must not interfere with adjacent spectra, thus high spatial and spectral imaging resolution is required. Most commercial spectrometers are not capable of high spatial imaging resolution and low distortion because optical aberrations, such as field curvature and the like, tend to distort the spectral image of the slit. The advent of large charge coupled detector (CCD) arrays has made it possible to sample an image with over a million separate detectors (pixels). It would be desirable to have a spectrometer that can preserve the inherent CCD spatial resolution and provide optical imaging of the desired spectra that has a resolution and absence of distortion that fits the CCD array rectilinear geometry.